martes, 31 de mayo de 2016

In the U.S. political culture, Memorial Day has become one more
chance to glorify American wars and to exploit U.S. soldiers’ deaths to
generate sentiment for more wars, a troubling tactic addressed by Gary G. Kohls and S. Brian Willson.

City of London – The Centre of the global crime scene

When it comes to The City of London, the term ‘tax haven’ is
not describing all that it should. It doesn’t just shield the
mega-wealthy from paying their fair dues it goes further and offers a
departure from the rule of law as you would know it. Secrecy is
its raison d’être. These secrecy laws do not benefit the local people
living in its jurisdiction but only those individuals and corporations
with enough money and with something to hide.

The reality is that the City of London caters for those above the
law, it operates on the basis of bypassing democratic society as a
whole. This has come about over time where an extraordinary ‘gentlemens
agreement’ has stood the test of time. Over the centuries, the head of
state and his/her governments have had the need of large loans for wars
and the like, the City, in exchange for such commodity has extracted
certain privileges the rest of the population do not enjoy. The end
result over the time is that it now has its own jurisdiction to do
pretty much as it pleases.

A ‘watchman’ sits at the high table of parliament and is its official
lobbyist sitting in seat of power right next to the Speaker of the
House who is “charged with maintaining and enhancing the City’s status
and ensuring that its established rights are safeguarded.” The job is to
maintain order and seek out political dissent that might arise against
the City.

The City of London has its own private funding and will ‘buy-off’ any
attempt to erode its powers; any scrutiny of its financial affairs are
put beyond external inspection or audit.

For over a hundred years the Labour party tried in vain to abolish
the City of London and its accompanying financial corruption. In 1917,
Labour’s new rising star Herbert Morrison, the grandfather of Peter
Mandelson made a stand and failed, calling it the “devilry of modern
finance.” And although attempt after attempt was made throughout the
following decades, it was Margaret Thatcher who succeeded by abolishing
its opponent, the Greater London Council in 1986.

Tony Blair went about it another way and offered to reform the City
of London in what turned out to be a gift from god. He effectively gave
the vote to corporations which swayed the balance of democratic power
away from residents and workers. It was received by its opponents as the
greatest retrograde step since the peace treaty of 1215, Magna Carta.
The City won its rights through debt financing in 1067, when William the
Conqueror acceded to it and ever since, governments have allowed the
continuation of its ancient rights above all others.

The City effectively now stands as money launderer of the world, the
capital of global crime. It is the heart and engine of the offshore
haven, with Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man its european collection
centres, the caribbean and others hoovering up billions of American
dollars from all over the globe. Whilst there are good and legal reasons
for offshore accounts, it has a dark and shadowy client list;
terrorists, drug barons, arms dealers, despots, dictators, shady
politicians, corporations and companies, millionaires and billionaires
– most with something to hide.

The Independent newspaper reported last July that The City of London
is the money-laundering centre of the world’s drug trade, according to
an internationally acclaimed crime expert. Another expert in Mafia
criminology has come forward and stated the UK is now the most corrupt country in the world
and firmly pins the blame on The City of London. In addition, every
notable financial expert now agrees that due to incredibly lax financial
laws facilitated by the British government, the London property market
is built largely on the laundered money of crime from all over the world
involving hidden tax havens, most of which are British.

Her Majesty’s British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies make up around 25 per cent of the world’s tax havens,
which are now blacklisted by the European Commission and now ranked as
the most important player in the financial secrecy world.

Tax havens featured on the EC’s blacklist of
June last year include Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands,
the Cayman Islands, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos Islands to name
just a few and each is inextricably linked to the City of London’s crime
offices.

Negotiators will have a new item on their agenda: how to deal with the
onslaught of leaks of proposals that were supposed to remain locked away
in secret until five years after the deal was concluded or abandoned.http://bilaterals.org/?the-leaks-go-on-before-another

Vindication for Edward Snowden From a New Player in NSA Whistleblowing Saga

An excerpt from the article:

An article by Mark Hertsgaard, adapted from his new book, Bravehearts: Whistle Blowing in the Age of Snowden, describes
how former NSA official Thomas Drake went through proper channels in
his attempt to expose civil-liberties violations at the NSA — and was
punished for it. The article vindicates open-government activists who
have long argued that whistleblower protections aren’t sufficient in the
national security realm.

It vindicates NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden who, well aware of
what happened to Drake, gave up his attempts to go through traditional
whistleblower channels – and instead handed over his trove of classified
documents directly to journalists.

And it adds to the vindication for Drake, who was already a hero in the whistleblower’s pantheon for having endured a four-year persecution by the Justice Department that a judge called “unconscionable.” [1]

It can be argued that there is no alternative to the massive use of airpower if fanatical and battle-hardened ‪#‎ISIS‬ fighters are to be defeated. But, as with so much in the war in ‪#‎Iraq‬ and ‪#‎Syria‬, the type of warfare being waged is determined by political priorities.

CNA

Barcelona (CNA).- The Spanish Constitutional Court (TC)
accepted this Tuesday the appeal presented by Spain’s executive in April
which called for the suspension some articles of the Catalan law
against energy poverty. In particular, the magistrates have cautionarily
suspended 8 articles mainly oriented toward avoiding evictions and
facilitating mediations when the families involved are at social risk.
According to the TC, the suspension is automatic and therefore the
magistrates “couldn’t do anything” but accept the Spanish government’s
appeal. The suspension was “to be expected”, assured the Catalan
Government’s Spokeswoman, Neus Munté. The TC’s decision comes two days
after thousands of people rallied in Barcelona to protest over the
Spanish court’s measures against numerous laws passed by the Catalan
Parliament.

By accepting the appeal presented by the Spanish executive, the TC
put on hold the decisive role that the Catalan law gave to mediation,
especially in those cases in which the non-payment of rent or mortgage
could lead to evictions. It also postpones the possibility that the
Catalan Government could start specific judiciary procedures to resolve
matters related to evictions.

The precepts 1,2,3,4 and 9 of Article 5 of Law 24/2015 have also been
cautionarily suspended. This article foresees that those particulars or
legal entities who acquired an apartment through foreclosure would have
to offer alternatives based on social renting to those families who
couldn’t afford to pay the rent before starting any judiciary procedure.

The Spanish executive also took before the court Article 7, which
sets out that the administration would be able to proceed to obligatory
cession of apartments which have been empty for more than three years
and which belong to legal entities or in the case that there was at
least one family at social risk in the local area.

A decision “to be expected”

The Catalan Government’s spokeswoman stated that the suspension of
these articles by the TC was “to be expected”. In April, Catalan
President Carles Puigdemont firmly criticised the decision to partially
appeal the Catalan law against energy poverty and accused the Spanish
executive of carrying out “political manoeuvring” with subjects which
have to do with “dignity”. According to him, the Spanish government was
“deliberately leaving in the open many families”. He accused the
executive of “pulling the wool” as “energy poverty can hardly be fought
if there is no house at all”.

Barcelona’s mayor Ada Colau assured that Barcelona’s City Hall “will
continue to make the most of its capacities with the skills available”
to guarantee the right to housing. Colau, a former activist and
president of PAH, the Mortgage Platform which has been fighting to stop
house evictions in Spain, criticised the “daring and arrogance” of the
Spanish government and emphasised that law 24/2015 was approved by
unanimity, and supported by thousands of signatures and by a great
social mobilisation. “The fact that a temporary government would dare to
appeal and would try to paralyse a law which was approved with such
consensus and which aims to face one of the worse social problems we
suffer from, is unspeakable”, she stated.

Israel's Civil Administration is literally redrawing the map to declare
more territory around West Bank settlements or deep in the West Bank
"state land." The new map gives Israel the legal cover to expand or
build more settlements.

Washington’s complicity in human rights abuses and repression of social
movements in Honduras has come to the fore once again as an
investigation published in Counterpunch revealed that the private
Honduran energy company that murdered Indigenous activist Berta Caceres
long resisted has signed a funding deal with a USAID partner just months
before her high-profile assassination.

A set of notes that were allegedly made during the EU Foreign
Affairs/Trade-Council on 13 May in Brussels, appears to show the UK
aggressively pushing for a controversial trade between the EU and Canada
to be implemented before the UK parliament would have a chance to vote
on the issue.

Although we often associate science with fact, what we don't often think
about is how many scientists are funded by industries. These two
scientists are speaking out against the billion dollar GMO industry in a
documentary. Watch it here and keep informed!

The election of ‪#‎Trump‬ or ‪#‎Clinton‬ is the old illusion of choice that is no choice: two sides of the same coin. In scapegoating minorities and promising to ‪#‎MakeAmericaGreatAgain‬, Trump is a far right-wing domestic populist; yet the danger of Clinton may be more lethal for the world.

"When we only memorialize US soldiers while ignoring the victims of our
aggression, we in effect are memorializing war. I cannot do that. War is
insane, and our country continues to perpetuate its insanity on others,
having been constantly at war since at least 1991. We fail our duties
as citizens if we remain silent rather than calling our US wars for what
they are – criminal and deceitful aggressions violating international
and US law to assure control of geostrategic resources, deemed necessary
to further our insatiable American Way Of Life (AWOL)." - S. Brian
Willson, Viet Nam veteran

Factories can’t run, farms can’t produce, mines can’t be mined,
supermarkets can’t be stocked, and call centres can’t accept calls if
workers don’t go to work. Even though the decks are often stacked
against workers, the basic fact that workers can withdraw their labour
with strikes, and encourage others to do so with picket lines, has done
much to improve working conditions in a range of industries around the
world.

But in a world of globalized, digitized, and atomized work, we now have a fundamentally different balance of power...

Workers in an electronics factory in Shenzhen, China.
Steve Jurvetson from Menlo Park, USA - glue works under a Creative Commons Licence

How to make a DIY Tesla Powerwall for $300

Tesla is a company that is known for open sourcing their patents. It is because of this that people around the world have begun to adopt the advanced technology and replicate it.

Youtube user, JehuGarcia
put together a video on how to construct your own Powerwall, the home
battery that Tesla developed to run your place off of solar 24/7.

The batteries are selling for $3,000-$3,500 from Tesla, but the
entire production line is sold out for 2016 so if you really want to get
your hands on a Powerwall, you may have to make it yourself.
Fortunately, here's the video

To be sure, Tesla's creator, Elon Musk, knows that his company alone
cannot supply enough batteries and electric cars to the world fast
enough to curb the carbon emissions. For this reason, he has opened his
patents and encouraged people to build their own.

All this on top of the fact that by making your own you can save 80+% on the cost.

Jonathan Cook, journalist

An interesting piece arguing that the proof neoliberalism is dying can be found in the fact that staff working inside its enforcement mechanisms, like the IMF, have started admitting to themselves that it is a political ideology rather than simply the best economic policy - something many of the rest of us realised a long time ago, of course.

A new IMF report concedes that the results of imposing neoliberalism across the globe "have been terrible. Neoliberalism hasn’t delivered economic growth – it has only made a few people a lot better off. It causes epic crashes that leave behind human wreckage and cost billions to clean up. ... This is a remarkable breach of the neoliberal consensus by the IMF. ... At last a major institution is going after not only the symptoms but the cause – and it is naming that cause as political."

Aditya Chakrabortty's point is that for elites the dominant ideology - the one that benefits them most - is supposed to be invisible. We are meant to regard it the same way we do the air we breathe - simply as a necessary precondition for our existence. But growing economic instability, rampant inequality, and the enormous damage being done to the planet are making that illusion increasingly difficult to sustain - even for those who benefit from the system. That, he argues, is the strongest indication that neoliberal economies are in a death spiral.

One could add, though of course Chakrabortty doesn't except elliptically, that one of the key pillars supporting this self-destructive economic system has been the corporate media's active efforts to maintain the deception that there is no alternative to neoliberalism. In that sense, Chakrabortty's article in the Guardian is almost as significant as the IMF report itself.

PETER KOENIG: Thousands of extra-judiciary drone killings, all
personally approved by Peace Nobel Laureate, Obama, and all with
casualties and so-called ‘collateral
damage’, costs the affected, mostly poor communities, tens of thousands
of lives and destroyed properties and public infrastructure valued at
millions of dollars; an assurance to keep them poor and submissive.

How the Nuremberg trials found names for the Nazis' crimes

In this extract from his book East West Street, human rights lawyer
Philippe Sands tells the personal stories of how genocide and crimes
against humanity were first defined in law

Defendants listen to parts of the verdict read by the International
Military Tribunal on 30 September 1946 in Nuremberg’s Palace of Justice.
Hans Frank is in the front row, fourth from right.
Photograph: Eddie Worth/AP

The Real Reason America Used Nuclear Weapons Against Japan. It Was Not To End the War Or Save Lives.

Like all Americans, I was taught that the U.S. dropped nuclear
bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to end WWII and save both
American and Japanese lives.

But most of the top American military officials at the time said otherwise.

The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey group, assigned by President Truman
to study the air attacks on Japan, produced a report in July of 1946
that concluded (52-56):

Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by
the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the
Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945 and in all
probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.

Not a day goes by without ‪#‎US‬ Think Tankland doing what it does best; pushing all sorts of scenarios for cold – and hot – war with ‪#‎Russia‬, plus myriad confrontations with ‪#‎China‬ and ‪#‎Iran‬. Our author Pepe Escobar has come up with some concise ‪#‎realpolitik‬ facts to counterpunch the hysteria – stressing how the Russian hypersonic ‪#‎missile‬ advantage renders useless the whole construct of ‪#‎NATO‬'s paranoid rhetoric and bluster.

The Commission's controversial impact assessment on regulation of
endocrine disrupting chemicals (lobbied for by industry as a way to
weaken regulation) is held in even more secrecy that the TTIP text!

New revelations in LeMonde by Stéphane Horel.

Endocrine disruptors are found in a multitude of consumer items
including cosmetics, pesticides and plastics. They are capable of
interfering with the hormones of animal species, including humans, and
are believed to be the cause of many serious diseases (hormone-dependent
cancers, infertility, obesity, diabetes, neuro-behavioral disorders
etc).